In the world of guitar players there are those who strum and/or pick using a single, typically triangular shaped flat pick which is held by the thumb and index finger. Then there are the players who mostly finger pick and do not use the aforementioned pick, but use the thumb and fingers independently to pluck individual strings. These “finger pickers” usually use no artificial aid at all but instead pluck the string with the flesh of their fingers. This finger picking style is the one which this invention addresses. Although most finger pickers do not use the wide selection of finger picks that are available, many have tried them in an attempt to reproduce the sound made by the triangular flat picks. These finger picks are generally made to be worn on the finger, and are usually one piece devices which contain both the part which secures the pick in place on the finger and the part that engages the instrument string as a single piece. A few others are two piece devices in which the pick, or striking edge, is held in place, usually by an elastic band which wraps around the finger. Most finger pickers have tried several different kinds of these picks and decided not to use them for the following reasons.    (1) The pick causes discomfort after a few minutes of wearing it.    (2) The pick interferes with the players natural playing style.    (3) The pick requires the player to learn a new picking style to adjust for the pick.    (4) The pick slips from it's position while in use and requires frequent readjustment.    (5) It doesn't produce the desired sound of a conventional flat pick    (6) Unwanted sounds are made when the user inadvertantly touches an adjacent.Several recent related inventions have described the history of finger pick development, among them Thornhill in U.S. Pat. No. 7,375,268, who cites previous devices which address the problems of discomfort and slippage. Sielaff and others, in U.S. Pat. No. 7,312,386 also recount the problems when finger pick users cannot feel the string before plucking, the frustration with the sound that is produced, and the awkward, unnatural feeling of a pick on ones finger. He also does a good job of explaining the limitations of previous designs which fail to address the important issue of placement of the engaging edge of the pick at the natural point of contact of fingertips and/or fingernails with the string to be plucked.
Thornhill's solution possibly eliminates much of the discomfort of prior art designs and also addresses slippage. Sielaffs solution seems to make some headway in providing a way for a pick edge to contact the string in close proximity on the fingertip where the unaided fingertip would naturally make contact. This would solve the problem of having to relearn technique and would make progress in allowing a player to have greater control over the sound that is produced. Other recent designs have come closer to totally eliminating the discomfort problem while providing a device which allows the user to feel the string in the same way as bare fingered playing. The ProPik Fingertone pick comes closer than many earlier pick designs in providing a way for the string player to feel the string before plucking. An online internet search will reveal that many string players have found the Fred Kelly Freedom picks solve problems inherent in other designs. This particular pick can be worn in either an up or down orientation, and has the advantage that the inner surface which secures the pick to the finger more closely conforms to the features of a human finger, thus going far in eliminating discomfort. This pick when worn with the slotted side down allows the player to feel the string before it is plucked, and also allows a much more comfortable position due to the large surface area of the inner side of the top part of the pick to contact the upper surface of the finger. This pick design, particularly in this orientation, solves many prior problems.
However, it still has one problem. This is a problem common to many other designs, also, more notably those which attempt to mimic the human fingernail as a striking edge. Not surprisingly, some string players do use their fingernails. It seems like a logical progression toward integrating a finger specific striking device with the advantages of the triangular flat pick. Fingernails have a hard narrow edge which can produce a crisp sound with better clarity and volume than bare finger string picking. But fingernails take a terrible beating when confronted with guitar strings which are usually made of metal. But there is another problem with fingernails which all previous designs seem to ignore. The natural shape of fingernails doesn't lend itself well to plucking a stringed instrument. A fingernail has a concave shape when it is directed toward the string, and when a string is plucked this concave shape causes a problem. This problem doesn't typically occur with those who use their fingernails, but with those who use finger picks which mimic the concave shape of finger nails. FIG. 46 shows an upside down view of the surfaces which contact together when a cylindrical fingernail-shaped pick (42) is used to pluck a string. The string encounters two points of contact (43) with the pick edge, the contact being at the surface of the narrow edge shown. This produces a scratchy sound as the player applies pressure to the pick and the edge slides along the string before it is released. Both the Freedom pick and the Alaska Pik finger picks have this design problem.
Several popular picks of related prior art incorporate a picking flange which is anchored to and originates from the dorsal or underside of the pick. This is the side which contacts the string. Some of these picks are the Thornhill pick, Dunlop pick, and the Fred Kelly Freedom pick. These are illustrated on the page of the prior art drawings and photos. The advantage of this design is that the instrument string only contacts the striking surface of the pick when the string is plucked. The finger or securing device is not contacted at all. Therefore there is no transition of the string across the junction of two different surfaces, and there is no possibility of a string catching or hanging. This produces a smooth movement of the string across the lower surface and usually results in a cleaner release of the string from the striking surface.
The disadvantage of this design is that finger contact with the string is lost, which is one of the first complaints of users of this type of pick. People who finger pick, especially new pickers, need to feel the placement of the string on the finger. It is crucial to the learning process to know where the strings are located so feeling the strings is important. This invention places the lower edge of the striking surface of the pick above the point on the lower finger surface where the string initially touches the finger. This enables the crucial feeling element for the string player.
Many of the “ease of use” problems of prior art designs originate in the failure to address the dynamics of plucking a string with a finger and thumb in the typical way in which this is done. This invention has come about as a result of an investigation into string picking dynamics, so that the design incorporated in this pick allows for a wonderfully natural feel and does not require the player to readjust his technique in order to produce a beautiful sound.